Coventry City news from CoventryLive as Sky Blues boss Frank Lampard in determined mood after Monday night’s return to top spot in the Championship
Coventry City boss Frank Lampard speaking after Monday night’s big win over promotion rivals Middlesbrough
Frank Lampard says it’s ‘game on’ in the Championship promotion race after his Coventry City side returned to the top of the table with a confidence restoring victory over rivals Middlesbrough.
A Haji Wright hat-trick sent the Sky Blues back to the summit of the division, a single point ahead of Boro who dropped back down to second place while providing a six point cushion to third placed Millwall and eight off Ipswich and Hull in fourth and fifth.
City now face away trips to West Brom and Sheffield United with 14 games remaining to secure a place in the automatic spots and make a return to the Premier League.
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Lampard expects many more twists and turns in that time, and has warned his side against enjoying their victory too much.
“There’s so many points to fight for,” he said. “We’ve got ourselves in this position, Boro are there, Ipswich are always going to be there because of their squad and the coach, and there are other teams around them, Millwall etc.
“So it’s game on, really. It’s game on. There’s so much to play for. So we absolutely cannot get carried away with anything and we just have to keep going, focus on ourselves. But it’s absolutely game on because there’s a lot of competition.
“Everyone talks about the parachute teams not doing so well this year – barring Ipswich to a degree – but the Wrexhams and the Birminghams create a level playing field with the fact that everyone can take points off you when you least expect it, shows it’s probably at its max from when I’ve been working in it. So that means no-one can rest.”
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City have been top for the majority of the campaign, over four months, and even help a ten point lead on Boro for a while. But a dip in form over the festive period coincided with the Teessiders building momentum under Kim Hellberg and overtake Coventry for a week.
Asked if it was nice to quickly move back to the top, the Sky Blues boss said: “Of course it is. It’s where you want to be, and it’s not easy. It’s not easy being at the top from where we came in as a group a year and a bit ago.
“I think the lads should get a lot of credit for that because there’s been quite a few questions asked in the last month. And I think the lads should get a lot of credit because where we’ve come from, and we come in and people are like, ‘well, the squad’s this’, and ‘we’ve got problems’, and ‘we’re worried about relegation’.
“All of a sudden they fly up the league and they continue that momentum this season. Maybe it’s a little bit normal that the month or six weeks that we’ve had – and it’s not been disastrous, we’ve just lost more points than the standards we’d set.
“But I think the lads should get more credit for that and hopefully the fans will really react to what they’ve done (on Monday night) and now we need to just keep going.”
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